18443Re: [mythsoc] Re: Medieval studies

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John D Rateliff

Jul 9, 2007

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Perhaps it would have been more accurate for him to have written "one
of the most widely KNOWN invented languages", since a great many
people know about it and may even have some idea how it looks and
sounds, but they can't actually read or write it. So its recognition
threshold is high, though its mastery is extremely low.
--JDR

On Jul 8, 2007, at 10:32 PM, lynnmaudlin wrote:
> --- In mythsoc@yahoogroups.com, "Carl F. Hostetter" <Aelfwine@...>
> wrote:
>>
>> John Gravois, the author of the article linked to, writes:
>>
>> "Elvish, a language created by Tolkien, is one of the most widely
>> spoken invented languages — along with Esperanto and Klingon."
>>
>> Let's see: Esperanto is spoken by between 100,000 and 2 million
>> people (according to Wikipedia). Klingon is probably spoken (slowly,
>> I'm sure; as opposed to simply being written, slowly) by no more than
>> a few dozen people. And precisely no one speaks "Elvish", either
>> Quenya or Sindarin (not even Tolkien could do so casually).
>>
>> "Elvish" can certainly be classified with Klingon in terms of _the
>> number of people who study it_ (but can't actually speak it
>> casually). But both are surely dwarfed by even the most conservative
>> estimate of those who actually can and do speak Esperanto.
>>
>> Carl
>
> Not to mention Volapuk...! But really, Carl, we're supposed to infer
> what he *means* and not simply understand what he said... [eye-
> rolling]
>
> -- Lynn --